FeedBurner COULD Help Fight Content Scrapers IF They Wanted To

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 If you remember, the other day I wrote about how “Did You Rob Bill Gates Blog is a Thief” was stealing content from this blog’s RSS Feeds. It still is. Not only from me, but from many others as well.

I did a couple of things to try to alleviate the problem of content theft.

Here is a few of the things I have done.

• I commented on their blog asking and then telling them to stop using my content without my permission.
• I contacted AdSense  (Google) stating that they (that blog) were infringing on my copyrighted material to no avail.
• I searched for and Blocked their IP address so they couldn’t access the blog directly.
• I even added a line “IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON “DID YOU ROB BILL GATES”, IT IS STOLEN CONTENT! PLEASE DO NOT CLICK ON ANY ADS, IT WILL ONLY ENCOURAGE THIS THIEF!’ to the Copyright in the footer of the RSS Feed, which showed on their blog.

All with no discernible result.

However, there COULD be another way to solve the problem of SPLOGS Scraping Feeds, at least on FeedBurner.

As you can see from the above, they have this report in Feed Statistics called “Uncommon Uses“.

 So, they already have an idea of people, bots and IP’s that are doing things that are a bit out of the norm. They even give you the option of telling FeedBurner that you know can trust the URL that they have tagged.

However, they only let you tell FB that you know the URL but they do Nothing with it. They don’t give you the option of Blocking it.

Since they can already track who or what is subscribed to your RSS, it makes sense that they have the ability to Block That Subscriber.

I think they should give us the option of Blocking Scrapers, especially since they can already identify them.

What do you think? Should FeedBurner give users the option of Blocking Scrapers in the Uncommon Uses portion of the reports?

July 29th, 2008 at 04:29pm | Posted by Joe | FeedBurner, RSS, Spam | 3 reader remarks | Print This Post

This Weeks Helpful Reads… Week 117

 This is an ongoing series of interesting and helpful reads that I have come across on the Internet. I try to include the most helpful articles and links each week to provide the widest range of information for the home business entrepreneur.

10 Quick and Simple Ways to Power Up Your Customer Testimonials by Dean Rieck (on CopyBlogger)… We as business owners should use testimonials to help our potential customers/clients understand the benefits of using our products/services. One of the best ways to do this is by using the experiences of clients you have already helped.

Committee to consider Work-at-home permits by Randy Moll (North West Arkansas News)… The Prohibition started with one woman, the school taxes in Pennsylvania are going up selectively by township, the trans-fat rebellion started in a small town with a simple report and grew into a state-wide ban in California. Work at Homers across the US should keep an eye on the small town of Gentry, AR to see what happens next.

I hope you find some of these articles informational and helpful. I think they will be enjoyable reading nonetheless.

July 27th, 2008 at 06:45am | Posted by Joe | Weekly Helpful Reads | reader remarks | Print This Post

Did You Rob Bill Gates Blog is a Thief!

For the past couple of weeks, “Did You Rob Bill Gates?” has been scraping my RSS feed, including the copyright on the bottom.

I have left comments asking them to cease on MY posts on their blog. There is NO contact information, no about page, nothing. Apparently, there is not even an author, since the one post I did find was signed “Contributing Writer” (unless that was stolen too!)

Since they are a Splog and Google AdSense is plastered all over the place, I contacted AdSense to inform them that they are Infringing on my Copyrighted Content as well as other Bloggers I know. I did get an e-mail response from Google, and they want me to jump through too many hoops like sending my complaint by snail-mail or fax in order for them to even investigate.

Ain’t gonna happen. If Google wants to pay them and be labled an enabler of SPLOGS, then so be it. But I doubt it will bother big brother much since they own Blogger, the biggest splog enabler of them all.

Now, I did block their IP address on my Host, but that only keeps them off the site directly, it can’t block them from RSS. I looked round and round on FeedBurner (also owned by Google) for a way to block them from my Feed. NOT! Even the Forum on FB has multiple complaints of similar instances, but they just say they’re sorry, nothing they can do. But, I DID add a little note in the footer of the Feed, just for DYRBG.

Here is a list of TODAY’s front page of STOLEN CONTENT:

Genius Level Toilet Seat Innovation

25. July 2008 Dan Gould

Event: Ignite NYC on July 29

25. July 2008 Christine Huang

PSFK Conference SF Liveblog Recap: New Art

25. July 2008 Lauren Isaacson

Designers Rethink Starbucks

25. July 2008 Dave Pinter

My 30 day Journey with Twitter

25. July 2008 Teresa Morrow

Working at Home Blog Carnival-Ninety-fifth Edition

25. July 2008 Joe

Confessions of a Natural Born Follower

24. July 2008 Wendy Piersall

Circos Genetic Mapping

24. July 2008 Michael Harvey

 The reason there are no links is they all lead to DYRBG, but If your name is on the list, contact me. We have to find a way to stop this.

July 25th, 2008 at 11:22am | Posted by Joe | RSS, Rants | 1 reader remark | Print This Post